The Steelers did handle Flacco and the Ravens. Beat them once with a backup and lost by 3 with another backup. Just imagine if Ben had played that Week 11 game against the Ratbirds at Heinz Field instead of Leftwich. Had the Steelers won that game, it would have been Pittsburgh in the playoffs instead of Baltimore.

There's two different ways to look at the Bengals 'rise' though.

Head to head the Steelers can handle the Bengals. There are decades worth of evidence to support such a claim.

However, OVERALL (since PIT and CIN do not play each other 16 times a year) the Steelers could be looking up at Cincy in the standings and/or need to beat them/out do them to make the playoffs. In that scenario, it will be much less of a guarantee.